Spiritual Group Practice

Invite everyone present to close their eyes and begin to focus on their breath. Depth or rate of breath is not important for this meditative exercise. Simply focus on the breathing, however it is occurring.

Encourage everyone to not judge their thoughts. Thoughts are not us. They occur, and they pass, and we can be aware of this without indwelling our “wearing” our thoughts. Picture yourself as the soul behind all of the thinking—as pure awareness.

After a few minutes, we will wish happiness, health, and freedom from suffering onto several people.

1. Let’s start with a person we don’t know who we remember from our recent activities (like a waiter, a cashier, or a passerby). Picture them in your mind, and try to realize the soul-to-soul connection you share even without knowing eachother personally. Now say to them in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

2. Now let’s picture a close friend. Think of what they mean to you. Think on all of the good times and hard times you’ve experienced together. Let yourself be blessed in your heart by remembering the kindness they have shown you, and celebrate how your inner connection has manifested in a beautiful personal friendship, visible in the world. Now say to them in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

3. Now take some time to think on every member of your immediate family. Family can be a complex thing, and not always a place of safety. For some, this process may be too hard; if you find yourself in this space, picture yourself cracking open a door to possible reconciliation, but you do not need to open it fully or crack it too wide if the pain is great. If your family is a place of safety and trust, inwardly celebrate and feel the gratitude your situation deserves. Picture the faces of all of your immediate family; look on them and love them. Now say to them in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

4. Now let’s picture our communities. Those people you know, and those people you don’t. Those realities that you love about your community space, and those that could use some improvement. Think on the people responsible for the good and the not-so-good, and consider the weights they carry of which we are largely ignorant. Consider the great compassion of Christ for the world that He walked among us in our pain and difficulty, becoming our neighbor. He still walks among us today, through you. Now say to your community in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

5. In the same fashion as your community, picture all of humanity. The good, the not-so-good, and the weights that are carried by all human beings. Remember that the love of Christ, an ocean of perfection, can contain and heal all of it. Now say to humanity in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

6. This one is difficult and should be practiced only if you feel safe to do so. If you are able, picture someone who has done you harm, whether physical or emotional. Remember that our trespassers hold within them the same consciousness and potential as any human being, but they have surrendered to their egos in their abuses. While we can be reborn every new moment to the Kingdom of Heaven within us, our attachments to our desires can at times cause us to act upon our ego’s baseless motivations. The weight of harm on us also weighs on our trespassers, whether they are conscious of it or not. If you are able, say to this person in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

7. Now let’s turn this loving kindness toward ourselves. In the secret place, before the foundations of the world, you were known and knit together by perfect Love. That is your source, That is your home reality. The longing you feel inside yourself for perfect Love is homesickness. You are divine essence. You are made of that which holds all things together. Call yourself Beloved, and say to yourself in your heart, “I wish you happiness, I wish you health, and I wish you freedom from suffering.”

(You can say “Amen”, or strike a singing bell or use whatever soothing tone you have available. Stay in the moment as long as you like.)